Ch.137020 Work Record – The Gardener’s Way (1)

The next day, broadcast time arrives once again. Starting today, eight unmanned cameras are assigned to follow me. The cameras click like baby birds with open mouths, hungry for feed.

I have plenty to feed them. Ms. Serena was busy arresting criminals today, and the traitors following her were my responsibility. I deliberately reorganize my high-frequency blades in front of the cameras.

These weren’t the only things accompanying me today. Preservation fluid tank-equipped drones from H-Enter’s information processing team were slowly hovering behind me. It felt like wearing a swarm of bees as a cape.

I mount the Smogpiercer. I race out from the underground parking garage of Heroism & Hope Corporation. Near the exit of the underground parking, I could see people holding holographic banners that read “Detroit Needs a Gardener.”

I don’t react. The Gardener is a mercenary and a professional. Responding to such cheers would only damage the character. The cheers fade into the background. Only the grim city’s ashen-gray roads were mine to claim.

Today, traitors had been spotted again. However, their appearance seemed quite amateurish. What kind of terrorist carries a bomb openly in their hands without even putting it in a box?

They’re trying to do what I did to Deputy Director Herbert Lorel. I decide to play along with their game. I connect to Heroism & Hope’s surveillance system and monitor the area where the terrorists were spotted.

I need to see where they’ve set up their kill zone. Is it around where the fake bomber fled, or somewhere along that route? Chance spoke as I analyzed the images appearing in my vision.

“Kill zone location secured. They’re waiting several hundred meters behind the point where you’ll turn right shortly. They seem to have predicted you’d take the optimized route.”

‘They must believe Heroism & Hope wouldn’t be monitoring. Fine. How many are there?’

“Assessment: Nearly 20 individuals, but they’re dispersed across several buildings, making them not difficult to eliminate individually. Remember: the heads must not be damaged.”

‘I remember that well.’

To turn 20 people into 20 pieces, their heads needed to remain intact. The sight of traitors’ brains experiencing chemically-induced hallucinations in preservation fluid tanks with hippocampus stimulants was something to enjoy.

I travel another block and turn the corner. A road packed with shops and office buildings comes into view. I immediately jump off the bike, support my forward-lurching body with my ankles, and dash forward.

I enter the first building of the kill zone Chance had mentioned. It was an office building, and the traitors were hiding on the fourth floor. There’s one staircase and one elevator. They’ll be guarding both entrances.

Despite being greedy and stupid nationalists, they were definitely better organized than others I’d faced before. At least they didn’t put gun barrels in their mouths out of fear.

I bypass the elevator. I skip the stairs too, and exit through a window at the back of the building, out of sight from the other kill zone buildings. I grab the smooth exterior wall with friction and grip strength, and climb up.

I crawl up like a quadruped or spider. My shock-absorbing skin makes almost no sound. I reach the fourth floor and hear the breathing of a traitor guarding the back corridor. I draw one high-frequency blade.

Hanging with just one hand and supporting myself with only my feet was no problem. While hanging like that, I send a jamming alert only to H-Enter before activating the radio jammer in my head.

The HUD in my vision turns off, and the jammed drones barely manage to hover, wobbling with their attitude control systems. The guard standing on the other side of the wall would have lost communication too.

Now, I turn off the radio jammer again. The cameras look around me as if asking, “What did I miss during the interference?” Nothing has changed. The signal was just cut for three seconds.

For well-trained traitors with their own protocols, a brief communication disruption meant there were certain procedures to follow. Soon I hear the sound of communications reconnecting and his voice.

“Did something happen? Uh, suddenly there was static on the communicator, like radio interference…”

“Nothing unusual. Probably just a glitch. Entertainment industry guys don’t use jammers that cut off camera connections. Stay at your post.”

He’s right. And I wasn’t one of those “entertainment industry guys.”

“Ah, yes. Understood.”

This was the advantage of the voice module. Being able to speak only in my mind. I save the two voices as presets. The guard standing here is preset one, and his superior he reported to is preset two.

‘Preset one.’

After changing the voice setting only in my mind, I raise just my hand holding the high-frequency blade while hanging on the wall. It penetrates through the window without breaking it, cleanly drilling a hole and impaling the guard’s neck.

I pull it back out. I cut the window lock hinges, open it, and enter. The sound of a person collapsing was already being followed by preset two’s voice in his earpiece. I pick it up.

“What’s going on?”

After confirming preset one is active, I push his head into a drone’s preservation fluid tank and answer.

“Nothing important. The curtain was blocking my view so I was pulling it back. Need to maintain rear security too, right? Any problems on your end?”

“Your attitude is exemplary. Yeah, no problems here. Except that corporate justice dog called Gardener or whatever isn’t showing up. Keep vigilant while waiting though. We’re checkpoint one.”

So they found it strange. I needed to shake them up one more time. I spoke to Chance in my mind. A guard standing still in one place is difficult to deal with. Moving soldiers are vulnerable.

‘Chance, can you start moving the bike? Make it look like it’s following a recalculated route.’

“Assessment: New route designated. Moving now.”

The Smogpiercer I had temporarily stopped starts moving again. I press the earpiece to reconnect and speak with an urgent voice.

“Is that, uh, the sound of his bike outside? It sounds like it’s recalculating its route and moving…”

“It is. Damn it. Everyone move to the opposite side of the building! Gardener must have figured out the kill zone location and readjusted. Try to suppress him with fire! Buy time until we can reposition the others!”

I appreciate that. The sound of people moving urgently inside the building begins. I pick up the rifle from the hands of the traitor whose body remains. Time to do things the Gardener way.

I hold the barrel as usual and turn the corner. The traitor who had been waiting in position and just started moving thought the person coming around the corner would be preset one. I pull the trigger.

Without even a silencer, the gunshot echoing in the narrow indoor corridor makes even my reduced hearing ring. The second traitor falls too. I slash his neck with the high-frequency blade and keep moving.

Being discovered is now just a matter of time. Fortunately, dying in a building where a freelance mercenary in a Type 4 suit is roaming is also just a matter of time. In the end… I have a bit more time.

I grab the earpiece emitting loud noises. Preset two’s voice shouting “What the hell is going on” provides no useful hints. The hint, if any, comes from the sounds right in front of me.

It seemed like what was once a large office had been divided into several smaller offices with drywall partitions. And from beyond that partition, I could hear someone trying to assess the situation.

“I, I don’t know either! Judging by the gunshots from Jake’s position…”

I start running down the office corridor. A wall approaches, but I don’t slow down. I charge into it with my full weight. Breaking through the drywall partition, I arrive right in front of the traitor with the earpiece.

He looked like his heart might stop at any moment. Well… I’d be quite startled too if someone burst through a wall while I was standing at a corner. He drew his pistol, but it hardly mattered.

With a heavy gunshot, the pistol bullet wraps around the sniper veil and slides off the bulletproof mask. I swing the high-frequency blade upward, first severing his wrist, then slicing his neck. I place his head in a drone’s preservation fluid tank.

‘Preset two.’

I mutter inwardly and switch the channel on the earpiece I’m holding. From the channel used only by traitors in this building to one connected to traitors in other buildings as well. I deliberately make the sound of heavy breathing.

“This, this is checkpoint one. Gardener has infiltrated this building! For-fortunately we’ve cornered him here, but I can’t hold out much longer. Requesting backup. If not now, we’ll never catch this corporate justice bastard!”

After that transmission, I send a jamming alert and activate the jammer again. Now even if the real preset two screams and shouts not to come, they won’t hear it. Not them.

“…ing! Hey! …he’s at my thro…!”

I start to hear shouting from somewhere. Which direction? Behind me. Specifically, the direction I was originally supposed to go. I follow quietly. I hear the sound of someone pounding on a window. It won’t help.

The voice becomes clearer. Someone shouting not to come. I draw two high-frequency blades one after another and power them both up. The humming sound echoes too loudly in the empty building.

They say that even an ordinary person needs to maintain at least 7 meters of distance to respond with a gun when they see someone drawing a blade. For a Type 4, it would be three or four times that.

Of course, that’s based on drawing a pistol from a holster, and he needed to lift a rifle hanging from a shoulder strap… but still, our traitor had far too little time to react.

He tried to lift the rifle tangled in its strap, but it only made a clunking sound. The high-frequency blade had already pierced through the rifle body, his body armor, and even slightly through the glass window behind him.

I pull out the high-frequency blade and throw away the gun. I hold the two blades crossed like garden shears. In my signature stance, I cross them like garden shears and cut. I turn off the radio jamming module and throw the head to a drone.

Some of the cameras flying around me were filming the traitors converging on this building. Would many people be dying of curiosity about what happened during that brief jamming? I couldn’t tell.

The visible result was simple. Gardener activated a jammer, preset two died, and the remaining traitors were gathering at this building as if hypnotized. Imagination is a powerful tool.

More traitor voices came through the earpiece. Their urgency suggested some degree of camaraderie. Perhaps it’s because they’re freedom fighters trying to save Detroit from corporate justice together.

“Williams! Are you alright? All forces from other checkpoints have arrived, so hold on a little longer! Where is Gardener!”

Could I imitate the stammering of a dying person? I open my mouth and breathe, making my mouth dry. In a faltering voice not my own, I whisper into the earpiece in front of the headless corpse.

I collect three flash grenades and one fragmentation grenade from the remaining body. Does searching corpses during combat look cool? I’m not sure. Still, I had to do my best.

A warning message appeared on the scheduled broadcast screen: “Gardener has collected flash grenades. To prevent photosensitive seizures, please watch in a well-lit room and keep distance from the screen.”

“Ei-eighth floor…”

After saying that, I crush the earpiece in my hand. I hope it’s enough to unsettle those who rushed here without caution. Chance’s voice speaks in my head again.

“External cameras have detected something else. Assessment: Reconnaissance drones.”

I run to the elevator shaft. I forcefully pull open the closed doors, then close them again from inside. Hidden in this dark, dusty place, I evade the reconnaissance. But I can’t stay safe forever.

Three floors below, the elevator doors are forced open just as I had done, and several drones begin to rise. Thorough bastards. I was planning to draw in more before starting, but now I need to act sooner.

I hold two unconnected flash grenades in one hand, pull the pins, and lightly jump down. I make brief eye contact with the ascending reconnaissance drones as I free-fall, landing right in front of them.

Their expressions were terrible again. Not quite as bad as the traitor who saw me burst through the wall, but… about 80% there. I throw the pin-pulled flash grenades behind them, into the gathered traitors.

A second eyelid designed to protect against bright flashes lowers beneath my eyelids, darkening my vision. Then, in the empty space where I threw them, flashes that I could easily withstand burst forth one after another. Not Belwether’s products.

The flash was at a level only I could withstand. The transparent visor revealing my face doesn’t help much in blocking flash grenades. I draw my high-frequency blade.

Cutting down traitors whose senses were malfunctioning from the flash and shock was, as Gardener would say, as easy as trimming grass. Drones with preservation fluid tanks swarm in. Only headless bodies remain.

But counting them all, there weren’t quite twenty. Some must have already gone up to rescue the traitor I had named preset two. I enter the elevator shaft again.

The elevator was coming down. I hide in the small gap between the elevator body and the wall. Did they go to the 8th floor first to check and are now coming to report finding nothing? If so, they would have used communications.

As the elevator body passes in front of me, I hear shallow breathing. Tense breathing. They must have heard the flash grenades through the communication channel. They’re coming down thinking the lower floors have already been wiped out.

That would explain why they didn’t communicate. The elevator doors slowly open, and they seem to spread out on both sides to check the surroundings. A crisp, disciplined voice rings out.

“All clear! No sign of Gardener! Um, what should we…”

“We can’t do anything with our numbers. Let’s retreat to headquarters for now. Stay alert as we leave since we don’t know where Gardener might be hiding. I’ll drive.”

I lightly jump up and land inside the elevator doors on the second floor. I quietly open the elevator doors and approach the window above the building’s only exit. I could see four traitors watching each other’s backs.

I pull the pin on my last flash grenade, then smash the building’s window with my fist. The four men perfectly maintaining perimeter security instantly looked up. Gunfire pours toward the broken window.

Fortunately, what fell through that gunfire wasn’t my body but the flash grenade. I only leisurely jumped down after hearing the flash grenade detonate.

After that… only eight unmanned cameras and two spare preservation fluid tank drones remained near me. All twenty mind maps were secured.